Is It Game On? Technical Analysis: Will Clemente, Kyle Doops & Rekt Capital (CG Day 2)

11 Jul 2023 · 1 h 2 min

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Podcast Summary: Raoul Pal: The Journey Man - Episode: Is It Game On? Technical Analysis

Episode Overview In this episode, Ash Bennington hosts a discussion with prominent crypto analysts Will Clemente, Kyle Doops, and Rekt Capital during the second day of the "Crypto Gathering: Is It Game On?" campaign. The episode centers on whether the cryptocurrency market is entering a new bull run and analyzes technical and on-chain metrics.

Key Themes

  • Current Market Conditions: The panel examines the state of Bitcoin (BTC) and digital assets, discussing historical cycles and current price movements.
  • Technical Analysis: The episode provides insights into chart patterns, including the "cup and handle" formation, and macro trends.
  • Market Predictions: Analysts share their predictions for BTC and the broader market, factoring in upcoming events like the Bitcoin halving and ETF approvals.

Detailed Breakdown

Introduction

  • Hosts: Ash Bennington welcomes guests Will Clemente, Kyle Doops, and Rekt Capital.
  • Discussion Focus: Analyzing whether the crypto market is poised for a significant upward movement.

Guest Introductions

  • Will Clemente: Co-founder of Reflexivity Research, focuses on high-time frame indicators and historical BTC cycles.
  • Kyle Doops: Host at Crypto Banter, specializes in technical analysis and price action.
  • Rekt Capital: Focuses on macro technical analysis, simplifying complex phenomena for investors.

Market State Analysis Will Clemente's Perspective

  • Emphasizes high-time frame indicators.
  • BTC's price performance reflects historical behavior from previous cycles.
  • Current price drawdown shows similar patterns to past cycles, indicating potential for recovery.

Kyle Doops' Viewpoint

  • Believes the market is in a transition phase, moving from a reaccumulation phase to a markup phase.
  • Highlights the importance of price consolidation around key levels, with eyes on reclaiming the $32,000 threshold to confirm a bull run.
  • Presents a "cup and handle" formation chart, identifying buy points and price targets.

Rekt Capital's Analysis

  • Discusses the importance of breaking macro downtrends to signal an uptrend.
  • Points out historical patterns related to the 200-week moving average and its significance in determining market bottoms.
  • Suggests that the bear market bottom is likely in, but warns of potential local tops and retracements before higher pricing.

Discussion on External Factors

  • ETF Implications: All guests agree that ETF approvals could significantly drive flows into the crypto market.
  • Liquidity Trends: Will Clemente explains liquidity decline in BTC markets following events like the FTX collapse, which has led to increased volatility.

Final Thoughts and Predictions

  • Rekt Capital: Markets are transitioning upwards; advises patience and strategic accumulation during retracements.
  • Kyle Doops: Will continue to monitor the 200-day moving average; anticipates a local top and subsequent pullback.
  • Will Clemente: Believes the high-time frame bottom is established; urges caution with leverage in trading.

Key Takeaways

  • The cryptocurrency market shows signs of recovery and potential bull runs based on historical cyclical behavior.
  • Technical analysis reveals significant patterns, such as the cup and handle, that could indicate future price movements.
  • Patience and strategic accumulation are key as the market navigates volatility and prepares for critical events like the Bitcoin halving and possible ETF launches.

Conclusion This episode of Raoul Pal's podcast brings together expert insights on the current state of the cryptocurrency market, focusing on technical analysis, historical trends, and external factors influencing market dynamics. As the panel reflects on past cycles and anticipates future developments, they emphasize the importance of being informed and strategic when approaching investments in this volatile landscape.

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Transcript

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0:57Hey everyone, if you like this podcast, go behind the paywall to get privileged access to the smartest minds in finance. Join the Real Vision community and learn how to become a better investor. Visit realvision.com slash RVpod and use the promo code podcast10, that's podcast10, to get 10 % off our essential membership for the first year. Now, to the top analysis of today's crypto markets.

1:30What's going on, guys? It's Ash Bennington. Welcome to the Crypto Gathering, our special week-long campaign on Real Vision, where we ask this big question. Is it game on in crypto? Are we about to enter the next bull run? And if so, how do you position for it? We kicked things off yesterday with a big macro and crypto interview with our CEO and co-founder, Raoul Pal. Raoul is incredibly bullish on crypto and tech. He's seeing massive adoption in the TradFi space. Raoul also sees liquidity kicking back into the system, which he thinks will drive up asset prices. Check out his piece from yesterday for more details on that.

2:10All right, now it's on to today's show. This is exciting. We look at that question, is it game on, through the lens of charts and technical analysis. We have an amazing panel of guests with us today. Will Clemente, co-founder of Reflexivity Research. Kyle Dupes, host at Crypto Banter and Rekt Capital trader and technical analyst. Guys, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Ash. Hey, Ash. Thanks for having us. Welcome. Hey, Ash, it's great to be here. Guys, I'm just going to go around the horn in the order that I see you in my screen right now. Will, first to you, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about your background.

2:48Sure. Hey, I'm very happy to be on today. My name is Will Clemente. I co-founded Reflexivity Research with Anthony Pompliano back in September. Prior to that, I spent some time at Blockware building out their in-house research team. And overall, I just spend a lot of my time on Twitter, kind of posting charts and kind of being deep in the weeds in some of this crypto stuff. Yeah, I should say, I'm sure our audience knows all three of you, but just to be thorough, let's go around the horn. Kyle, next to you. Thanks so much for having me, Ash. Yeah, Kyle Dupes, that's the name of my show on Crypto Banter.

3:21I'm one of the show hosts specializing in technical analysis. Do look at a little bit of on-chain metrics and fundamentals and try and tie all of that together with the technicals. But definitely price action is the main thing I focus on. And I've been doing this for about six, seven years and a show host for just over one year. So very glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Rekt, on to you. Hey, guys. It's great to be here back on Real Vision. I'm Rekt Capital. I've been in the space since 2016, so I almost don't remember my life before crypto. It's been a while, but my specialty is essentially technical analysis on a macro time frame.

4:03It's all about breaking down the complex phenomena into easily digestible tidbits and insights that can really help investors. And that's why I specialize in on Twitter, YouTube, and also in the Recticapital newsletter. Well said. Well, we love Easily Digestible here at Real Vision. All right, guys. So we know the question that's on the table. What's the big picture? What's going on right now? Is it game on? Will, first to you, big picture, where are we? Do you see this being the beginning of another bull run? Or is it something else? Sure. It's a great question. And, you know, I think I've tried to focus over the last six to eight months on just looking at kind of high time frame indicators, not really trying to follow short term price movements and chopping myself up to bits.

4:49And when I kind of look at this broader kind of high time frame view and where we are and the broader cycle for BTC and the other digital assets, there's a couple of different things to look at. I think a good place to start are maybe two charts that I included in the Bitcoin quarterly report that we just released, looking at Bitcoin's price performance from its prior cycle high, as well as Bitcoin's price performance from its prior cycle low. When we look at both of these charts, what they're showing is that just from a pure time standpoint, this market cycle is behaving very similar to prior cycles.

5:22So, you know, as we know, history doesn't always repeat, but it does often rhyme. And so purely looking at a price and time perspective, we are seeing the cycle is reflecting some of the behavior that we saw in these previous Bitcoin cycles. We can also get into some different kind of on-chain metrics or kind of momentum indicators. And I'm sure Kyle and Rekt have some great stuff to share on the TA side there. So I'll kind of pause there. I think maybe that's a good place to kick it off. And we'll talk through the chart that we see on the screen right now. It just came up. This is Bitcoin price performance since cycle A-T-H.

5:58Yeah. So essentially, we're just looking at these different Bitcoin, what we call in crypto, these four-year cycles based on Bitcoin's price performance from its prior cycle all-time high. So we have the first cycle there shown in orange, the 2017 cycle in pink, the most recent cycle that took place up into the back half of where Bitcoin peaked in the back half of 21 in green. and then this most recent cycle shown there as well. And so what we can essentially see is that this current cycle from that time standpoint that I talked about is behaving very similar to these kind of prior cycles. And then also from a price drawdown standpoint, so this is more looking at just from like kind of a time perspective, but also from just an outright price drawdown standpoint, BTC pulled back 75 % towards the back half of last year, is now down only 55%.

6:50But from kind of a price drawdown standpoint, it's also pretty on par with the amount of pain inflicted on the market that allowed BTC to bottom in prior cycles. All right, Kyle, over to you. Big picture, where do you think we are right now? Big picture, I believe we're in a transitionary phase. So obviously, the market moves in cycles. You go from a strong downtrend into a slowdown phase, moving sideways, reaccumulation, and then ultimately break out of those zones and go into a markup phase. So I believe that we're somewhere in between that reaccumulation phase and just the beginning of the markup phase.

7:29Similar to Will, I also look at the timing cycle. That was one way that I was able to identify in January that the market was most likely already putting in a bottom at that stage. Although, full disclosure, I did have lower targets at the time, But based on my trading styles and systems, I was able to identify that I wasn't going to make it to those low targets and basically hop back into the market. I'm more focused on swing trading. So I am always open to the possibility that this could still technically be a relief rally. And I think that is the million dollar question. Is it the end of a relief rally or the beginning of a bull run?

8:07The longer that we consolidate around these regions, I think the higher the probability is of a greater breakout. And once we start to reclaim above that$32 ,000 level, I think my probability will start to shift much higher towards this being the start of a bull run. So, yeah, that's kind of what I'm looking at to tie that in with what Will has to say. Kyle, with that said, any charts you want to show us that illustrate those points? Yeah, sure. So what you can do is you can bring up the cup and handle formation, which is on Bitcoin. Ethereum also has one. We can take a look at that a little bit later.

8:43But if you bring that one up on Bitcoin, you can see that it's, there we go, that's one of the trade ideas that I've taken as a swing trade position. Very, very simple, perfect cup and handle formation there, which also paired up with a falling wage. For folks who aren't as familiar with technical trading, can you give us a little bit of an an explanation for how you think about a cup and handle pattern? Sure. So I'm just looking for that rounded bottom. So coming from a solo phase, which is on the left-hand side, that was when we had, if you look at November over there, that was the FTX collapse, of course, where we made those ultimate lows.

9:22And then you start to create that rounded bottom, which is going to be the bottom of your cup. And that often gets created off of the back of very, very bad news, which is exactly what we saw over here. Price then starts to bounce and reaccumulate from that zone, creating higher highs and higher lows. The next major higher low that was set was the DPEG of USDC, that major scare. Price then moved directly into the 200-day moving average, which was, for me, the absolute perfect buy-the-dip opportunity because you now have confirmation of breaking out of that range. And then you start to pull back following that into the handle portion.

10:06So it looks exactly like you would imagine if a three-year-old had to draw a cup over there with a rounded bottom and then the handle. The handle also doubles up as a falling wedge. And once we started to break out of that falling wedge, you can see price met the left-hand side target over there. It's got a very small highlighted horizontal line We've already hit that target. We're currently consolidating at that region. That was the first area of interest. And thereafter, the top side of the measured move would take price to, I believe it's$43 ,000 if the full measured move plays out. The way that you'd work out that measured move is you would take a vertical line from the very bottom of the cup and you have what's called the neckline.

10:52If you extend the yellow line, the horizontal, which is where current price is situated, a break above that neckline would confirm that the cup and handle is in full force and ultimately looking for those higher targets. Thank you, Kyle. All right, Rekt, the floor is yours. Are we currently in a breakout bull market or is it something else? I think it's very easy and tempting to say bear market or bull market. but one of the best ways to think of a bear market is a series of lower highs a macro downtrend on a higher time frame chart such as the monthly time frame and when you see a series of lower highs a macro downtrend that's essentially a graphical representation showcasing to us that it's a downtrend we're in a bear market for an extended period of time and once we break that downtrend And suddenly we start to tilt into more of a macro uptrend.

11:55So we've broken that macro downtrend a few months ago. And that's one of the charts that we'll be looking at later on. But to also touch upon how we should think about a bull market, we must also look back a bit in time. And this is where my first chart comes in, which is essentially a tweet of mine from May 2022. to answer the question of a bull market it's always good to look back on a bear market and back in May 2022 I posted a tweet about the 200 moving average the 200 week moving average that's this orange moving average and historically we tend to see downside deviations below this 200 a week moving average.

12:41And if we look to the very left of that chart, we will see that in 2015, we had two downside deviations below that 200 a week moving average. And both of those downside deviations were minus 15%. And that's essentially where the 2015 bear market bottom was produced. And then if we look to 2018, 2019, in the middle of this chart, we can actually see there's no real downside deviation. So that's pretty atypical based on history that we just rest on this 200 week moving average and form a bear market bottom there. But if we fast forward to March 2020, indeed, there's another downside deviation. And that downside deviation below the 200 week moving average was around 28%.

13:28So historically, to form a bear market bottom, we have to either touch the 200-week moving average or downside deviate below it by minus 15 % to minus 28%. So in May 2022, I spoke about this downside deviation needing to happen. And this was when price was at 30K or so. And if we move on to the next chart, which is from around this time of year, July, we can see that there was the 200-week moving average chart. In fact, so where you have the 200-week moving average orange moving average, in that chart, we essentially see that price downside deviated below that moving average by 30%, which was essentially repeating the COVID crash of March 2020.

14:24And that's quite interesting because history essentially repeated itself. And since then, Bitcoin has rallied 100 % towards the upside. So that was about deducing the bear market bottom. Downside deviations below the 200-week moving average tend to happen to form that bear market bottom. And in this cycle, the only difference was that we didn't see wicking in the form of just a very brief downside price action and then recovery back above it. We actually had multiple weeks below this 200-week moving average. So to answer the question of whether we're in a bull market, we've definitely had the bear market bottom.

15:05And we've downside deviated below the 200-week moving average. And we've shifted the trend entirely where we're now trying to perform a local top of some sort. We probably won't rally to new all-time highs this year. We'll have to wait for the halving, for after the halving, for that to occur. But at this point in time, Bitcoin is going to try and search for a local top before retracing a bit. But when it comes to the bear market bottom, it's probably in already. And when it comes to the bull market being underway, we're in an early stage phase of the bull market, but still deep retracements can occur in the future.

15:42Hey, everyone, we're going to take a quick pause and hear a word from our partners. We'll be right back.

15:50Well, one of the fun things about having all three of you here at the same time is the opportunity for you guys to interact. I'm curious, you've each laid out your thesis, shown a chart, talked a little bit about the way you see markets right now. Now, I'm curious if there was anything that was said today so far that makes you guys think either I agree with that or I see things a little bit differently.

16:14I mean, I think we all kind of generally agree. I think one thing outside of the realm of TA or on-chain data that's going to drive flows into this market, regardless of where we're looking at lines on our charts or where we're identifying different areas for gauging momentum or whatever it may be, is the ETF news. It's just fundamentally, if these ETFs get approved, it's going to allow more flows into the asset, and that's going to override any type of analysis that we're doing. And I think it is interesting to see over the last month or two, there are some pretty telltale signs of those ETF flows coming into the market.

16:55I look at a couple things to kind of gauge that. One is looking at trading hour premiums. So we can look at U.S. trading hours relative to EU, relative to APAC. Essentially look at which trading session is driving price movements in the asset. And we can see that over the last two months, the US trading hours have been trading at a premium relative to the other two. In addition to that, we can also see that Coinbase, the exchange itself, so that the price of Bitcoin on Coinbase has been trading at a premium to other crypto exchanges. So those two things also paired with looking at CME open interest rising over a billion dollars in a relatively short period of time.

17:37You know, crypto degenerates aren't punting on leverage on CME, right? It's like the boomers are using CME. So I think that's another kind of third data point to reflect that it's been primarily what appears to be U.S.-based firms driving flows into the asset. I think a lot of that is in anticipation of the ETF. We also saw today - To clarify the point that you just made about Coinbase, that's because of the custodial services relationship that Coinbase has to some of those who have filed for an ETF for spot BTC here in the U.S. Well, I think that's an additional point. What I was just saying was the price of Bitcoin on Coinbase has been trading at a premium to the other crypto venues.

18:17So just to say that it's primarily U.S.-based firms that use Coinbase. U.S.-based hedge funds aren't using some of these offshore exchanges, right? So again, you're using Coinbase in this sense as another geographic proxy for relative strength in price in a similar fashion that you're using time zones to see where those premia are trading. Exactly, exactly. But also to your point, that is also true that Coinbase has obviously been ripping today. It's up over 11 % in the first 35 minutes of trading this morning. And part of that was that now all of, I believe, the major ETFs that are in the pipeline to get approved are using Coinbase as the vehicle to have this shared surveillance agreement with.

19:02So that's kind of a stamp of approval for Coinbase. And so I think that is also along with the GBTC premium, which is also kind of been closing in from 50 % to now sitting around, hanging around, I think 30 % below NAV. I think all these things are a reflection of the same idea, which is that the ETF trade has been in kind of full effect. I think a lot of the outcome for the market over the next kind of three to six months is going to be dependent on what happens with these ETFs. Yeah, important point. We're talking about discount or premium in this case, discount, not premium relative to net asset value and price on GBTC.

19:40Boy, really interesting points you just made there, Will. And you bring it up sort of in the general as well as the specific. I mean, in the general sense, I'm kind of curious about how you guys incorporate exogenous news flow into charting analysis that clearly does not contain some of those potential future issues. But more specifically, in this case, I'm curious about Will's point, what you guys think, Kyle and Rick, about the potential impact of ETF spot BTC here in the US. Is it coming in your view? And if so, what's the price impact potential? So, from my side, I mean, I can only speculate.

20:18I do believe that BlackRock obviously hold a very powerful hand within the markets and therefore most likely I think that it should be approved. And I think that will obviously bring a massive flow of other ETFs coming in because they can obviously refile under the same principles that BlackRock did. And ultimately, more money coming into the market, of course, would drive the market up. I'm of the opinion, though, that it will continue to be a Bitcoin-only rally for a while. Dominance will continue to tick on up. That's also in alignment with what I see on the ETH BTC chart in the short and medium timeframe.

20:55And then at a later stage, we'll probably have the flow of money going back into ETH. And then the normal cycle persists. Although it is very interesting with the SEC and the altcoins being labeled as securities, I'm not yet sure how that plays out. I'm more of a shorter time frame trader that just looks at charts from a day-to-day basis. So it's not something that has to form part of my thesis at the moment. But I understand the potential of what this could bring in the future. And if it's in line with the way that I'm trading, then great. But there's the EBTC chart. I see you guys have brought it up.

21:34Ultimately, I've just been watching. It's been ultimately range bound over there. and I'm just looking for a breakdown towards the range low support. I'll need to quickly look on my own chart to see the exact value. So that should bring it to 0.0557. That's my first area of interest where I even consider looking at ETH as an option. Yeah, interesting. And you bring this interesting point in when you talk about this idea of you'd like to focus on the swing trading zone, obviously a little bit more short term. But when you start seeing these exogenous factors, it is interesting to hear about how you bake that into your thesis or don't and how you trade around it.

22:15Yeah, for me, it's something I definitely consider. I think that it's whether I'm going to be holding something longer term or not, that that will highly influence basically the outlook that I have on the market. So for example, when price was also below the 200 week moving average, which Red Capital spoke of, that was a major, major warning flag for me, although he identified that that's usually where you have those major deviations below, which end the bear market. Something like that, for example, on my side, until such time as that's reclaimed, it would be a major risk of environment, even though historically that has been the case.

22:55But Bitcoin not having that much data, only being 12 or 13 years old is not enough for me to go long on. So I do tend to look at these things. But ultimately, as a swing trader, I just make my decisions on a day-to-day basis. And I have a specific swing trading system which will either have me all in the market or all out within a week apart from each other. So quite aggressive trading style. Interesting. Rekt, you've listened to this conversation about what's happening right now with Bitcoin spot ETFs here in the United States. What are your thoughts? How do you integrate it into your trading process?

23:34You know, it's a really fascinating topic because ETFs in general have been a catalyst across cycles since 2017, maybe even 2016. That's when we started hearing for the first time about an ETF, teasing of that maybe happening in that bull run. And of course, that didn't happen. But of course, that catalyst has a life of its own. It's always going to be that prevailing narrative. And we're seeing concrete things emerge that maybe indeed we might see an ETF in this cycle. But I think as a technical analyst, I want to give you guys an interesting perspective. And let's look at the August 2nd, 2022 chart because catalysts and narratives always exist but from the perspective of a technical analyst such as myself this is something we see in the charts beforehand so on August 2022 this was actually the last time we spoke on Real Vision I believe and this is a chart that I mentioned and it's an interesting thing to bring up a bit of historical heritage just to show that chart from August and how things have progressed since then.

24:50But just to talk about this chart before we move on to the next one. In this chart, I presented the theory of three macro triangles. And each triangle, of course, has that macro downtrend. So a slanting, downtrending line showcasing to us that we're in a bear market. And we see this in the cycles 2015, 2015, 2018, 2019, and then now in this cycle. And what's interesting about each of these periods is that whenever we're losing the base of a triangle, so those yellow circles showcase when we break down from a descending triangle. So let's focus on the 2015 portion. That first yellow circle showcases to us that Bitcoin tends to drop minus 65 % towards the downside.

25:35And we see a drop in the 2018 cycle of 50%. So what I essentially reasoned the last time we saw each other in August 2022 is that we might see a retracement from the breakdown of that triangle, and you might see a retracement of around 50 to 65%. And of course, around that time, we'd hit 15 ,500 for a 50 % retracement. But what's also interesting about this chart is that we tend to see a break beyond the macro downtrend around 366 to 396 days before the halving. And the halvings are the blue vertical lines here. So what's really interesting, and this talks about, harkens back to my point, where a macro downtrend is a bear market.

26:23And then when we break beyond that macro downtrend, we enter a new macro uptrend leading up to the halving. So if we just move on to the next chart, just to show us how things have evolved since that time. And we'll see some really interesting conclusions. And the main conclusion is by cycling to the July 2023 chart, just to see an update, we'll notice that history repeats itself. So number one, we saw a 50 % retracement, a little bit over 50 % retracement since just breaking down from that descending triangle. So that's in line with the retracements in the past. But by the same token, we also saw a break beyond the macro downtrend around 366 to 396 days before the halving.

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27:16So in this cycle, it was actually 397 days. So just like in 2019. So we're seeing two historically repeating price tendencies in Bitcoin's price action just copy-paste into this cycle. So to answer your question, Ash, are fundamental catalysts important? What do I think about them? just seeing a technical analysis like this a chart like this where you see things play out and catalysts come in to support that price action and support those historically recurring price tendencies repeating yet again it's it's a bit of a coincidence or rather do we see strength developing in the charts first and then narratives and catalysts seem to propel price action towards the upside.

28:09So here we know that the macro downtrend has been broken 397 days before the next halving. We're in a new macro uptrend because that macro downtrend has been breached. And now we're going to be in a period of perhaps local topping, then retracement, and then another pre-halving retrace before post-halving exponential price action. And during these points, there are different technical checkpoints through the lens of TA. But during each of these points, we'll probably see different types of catalysts coming in. And one of the major catalysts recently, a month or a few weeks ago, was that the SEC was suing some crypto exchanges.

28:50And that's when we saw a bit of a retracement. And that catalyst enabled a technical retest of a key monthly level. So it's TA and FA are two parts of the same coin. They work together quite nicely. And in the case of me being a technical analyst, when I look at the charts, fundamental catalysts seem to propel hidden strengths or act on hidden weakness. And then we see the price action develop from there. One of the most, I think, intriguing aspects of Bitcoin is the cyclicality that both Will and Rekt have talked about. I think just the visual strength of those correlations seems, at least to me, quite obvious when you look at the chart.

29:35Even for folks who are skeptical of TA, it's just pretty overwhelming to see how cyclical these markets tend to be in terms of some of the patterns that we've seen. Guys, I should say we've got a lot of action right now on YouTube as well as on the Real Vision platform. Lots of folks engaging in the conversation. I'd like to invite all of them to ask questions. We'd love to get your input on this. I think it's really cool that we have three technical analysts here at the same time that we can ask questions of. And with that said, I want to jump in and just ask the first one. The first one comes to us from Peter Lim on the Real Vision website.

30:04What do you guys think of the BTC ETH pair he's talking about here? Do you think the CME product changes this? That's a really interesting and specific question. Does the CME product or product suite change the relationship between the Bitcoin Ethereum pair? Any thoughts? Sure. Yeah, I think, first of all, maybe for anyone who doesn't know, the CME announced that they're listing BTC ETH futures or ETH BTC futures. And so the question is kind of based around that. Look, I think in kind of the short to intermediate term, it's pretty clear that flows are just flat out going to be moving into BTC relative to ETH.

30:43Of course, you'll probably have a basket of some outperformers here and there in terms of the all coin spaces, there always are. But just looking up until kind of ETF approval or ETF decision. It's tough, I think, to make the case at the moment for flows to be driven into ETH relative to BTC. And we can see that in some of the data that I mentioned at the beginning. Another interesting data point outside of like Bitcoin dominance that everyone's been talking about is we can look at perpetual futures dominance. So anyone who doesn't know, perps are the most liquid product that's traded in crypto.

31:19They're these perpetual futures that you can get access to cheap leverage on a lot of these offshore venues. And so when we look at the amount of PERP volume for BTC on a relative basis to Ethereum, we can see that over the last two months, there's been a pretty clear divergence. Yeah, we got the chart on the screen now. You can see there in orange BTC's dominance of the perpetual volume and then ETH's there in blue. We can see that divergence showing that there's more interest to speculate in BTC relative to ETH. And so I think that's just another interesting data point in the derivatives market showing that flows have been moving into BTC relative to ETH.

31:59And so to answer the question, basically, I just think up until ETF approval date, it's probably we see ETF. We probably see ETH BTC continuing to kind of trend down into that event. And then from there, maybe that changes. Any other thoughts on that question, guys? BTC in relation to the CME product? The only comment that I'd make from a chart perspective is that I could pretty much see the ETH BTC chart continuing to trend down before finding any support. It's going to be somewhere around August, most likely, from what I'm seeing. I don't know how that lines up with the fundamentals, but somehow the charts do seem to at least suggest what the fundamentals may be bringing in at a later stage.

32:43And then I think that it's naturally also the typical way that the market cycles flow, which is always it starts with BTC and then it moves into ETH because people seek more risk. They have a high risk appetite and they feel safer within the market. And BTC has already run too much. So they start to look for other opportunities because they think the opportunity is running out on BTC. and then it will start to flow from ETH into larger cap or the other large cap altcoins, then mid caps and then low caps. So I think from a cyclical perspective, it's repeating very, very similar to the prior cycles.

33:25Yeah. And like to Carl's point, we see this in all markets where at the bottom of cycles, we tend to see kind of this liquidity flow back into quote unquote value assets. And then as we kind of go through the cycle, you see liquidity dispersion further and further down the tail of risk. And then eventually what happens is it kind of starts off with this liquidity flow into these kind of core, fundamentally based assets. And then as you go into the kind of peak bull, all that liquidity kind of disperses out. And then the actual flows that are driving into the kind of core assets that are holding up the entire market from the beginning are no longer getting any flows.

34:00And they're all going into these kind of fat tail assets. And then the whole thing kind of implodes in on itself. And so I agree with Kyle, I think, where we are in terms of that cycle of flow of liquidity. We're still very much in, of course, you've kind of got your outliers here and there, Pepe ripping in two weeks or whatever. But generally speaking, I think we're kind of in that phase where we still have seen liquidity concentrated in kind of these core value assets for crypto. Yeah, it's an interesting point. Actually, Rao was making something similar about liquidity dispersion and general asset risk curve sort of dispersion as well.

34:37He was making this analysis yesterday, basically talking about things, for example, high grade to high yield to emerging market high yield, this idea that this is something that we see in traditional markets as well as in digital asset markets. And it's an important point. Rek, any thoughts on that pair and the new products over at CME? Absolutely. I mean, what we've been just talking about is essentially the crypto money flow cycle. You know, it all begins with fiat, whether that's the USD, GBP, Euro, whatever traditional currency. You start your journey with fiat and then you buy Bitcoin. That's the predominant major currency in crypto.

35:14And then once you make a bit of profits on that, then you start to think, OK, maybe I'm OK to start increasing my risk. And your risk tolerance and risk appetite grows as a result. And then slowly but surely, gradually, you're more OK to circulate those profits into assets such as Ethereum. So those are large caps, which are, of course, smaller coins to Bitcoin. But large caps are altcoins as well. And they have a fair amount of market cap to them. But they, of course, generate a higher yield than Bitcoin. So they're always tempting to have. So generally speaking, with the crypto money flow cycle, you start from Bitcoin and then that money flow and profit circulation occurs and goes towards large caps, which are coins like Ethereum.

36:06But then, of course, as the cycle progresses, Bitcoin continues to make new highs and Ethereum is making new highs as well. And then people start to look for mid cap and then small cap and ultra small cap altcoins, which are, of course, as you go down the money flow cycle, these are more and more risky assets with lesser and lesser market cap sizes. So as a result, you know, the smallest cap altcoin could rally 10x. And of course, it could drop by 80 % or 50 % in the next few weeks afterwards. So with higher risk and smaller cap coins, of course, come greater profit potential, but also greater risk of downside.

36:53So as the cycle matures, we'll see more people getting increasingly exuberant and optimistic about crypto and increasingly greedy, so to speak, in terms of diversifying their assets into smaller and smaller altcoins, having a greater risk tolerance and risk appetite towards these riskier assets. And the fact that we're concentrating right now on Bitcoin and now Ethereum is slowly coming to the fore, it's really interesting to see how we're at the very top of that money flow cycle. So it starts with fiat, Bitcoin, Ethereum large caps, then mid caps, small caps, and then ultra 10x small caps. So at the moment, we're very early on in the money flow cycle.

37:36We're in an early stage bull market. And the fact that we're seeing a catalyst like that is just greater confluence to that point that we're very early on in the cycle. Yeah, I should say, please put down your questions in the chat. We'll ask the best ones on the air. Remember, Real Vision members take priority. If you're not a Real Vision member yet, go to realvision.com forward slash crypto. That's realvision.com forward slash crypto to sign up. It's free, of course, and it will remain so. I remember the crypto gathering campaign is taking place all week this week. So we've got lots more exciting panels to come.

38:11Please sign up whenever you can. I think you guys are going to enjoy this content. Here's an interesting next question. It comes to us from Ralph on the Real Vision website. And it picks up on some points that Will was making at the beginning. The question is this. Have any of the analysts noted a pickup in BTC liquidity over the past few months? I think I know the answer to that question. But let me also ask this, if you could talk a little bit about how you're seeing it. Is it volume? Is it BASK spread? What are you seeing in terms of BTC liquidity from Ralph on the website? Yeah, it's a really interesting question.

38:45You know, we have seen, as I mentioned, more like US base flows over the last couple of weeks. But when we look at liquidity specifically to answer the question over the last year, we've just seen kind of this perpetual decline over the last kind of like nine to 12 months. If you want to pull this up, it's in our Bitcoin quarterly report as well as it should be in the thread that we put out on it on our Twitter. But I'll go ahead and kind of start talking through it. I think it'd be more helpful if we could get a chart on the screen. What we're looking at here is market depth for BTC. And the way we're defining that is by looking at the coin denominated amount of bids and asks in the order book between the current marginal trading price and what would move price up 2 % and what would move price down 2%.

39:29So essentially, how large of an order do you have to put in the book to move in the market to move the price up or down 2 % based on the amount of orders in the book? There it is. As you can see right around the FTX collapse, this really dropped off. And I think it's a reflection of the counterparty risk in the space. So we saw all these centralized entities blowing up and the contagion of that throughout all of 2022. And then also a ton of the kind of regulatory uncertainty. We saw that actually reflected in an announcement about two months ago from Jane Street, which is a very large traditional market making firm, as well as Jump, who's another very large traditional market making firm, but made a huge splash into crypto.

40:10Now, probably one of the largest actors in the crypto space. And in that announcement, Jane Street said that they're going to be pulling back their operations entirely, while Jump said that they're going to be moving their operations entirely out of the U.S. and just moving them to being offshore. But I think that's just that announcement in itself is just a reflection exactly of what I'm saying, is that there's a ton of kind of regulatory uncertainty still in the U.S. and you pair that with the kind of counterparty risk that still exists and you get the outcome, which is here on the chart, a continued decline in liquidity.

40:43And that does make it difficult for larger players to kind of get allocations to the asset without incurring any slippage in price. And so, you know, I think what does this ultimately like kind of translate to? I think on lower timeframes, you know, more volatility because people are going to eat more slippage trying to get in, you know, large buys and sells. Rekt, Kyle, any thoughts on Bitcoin liquidity? Sure, I'll go first. From my side, the way that I use liquidity is exactly what Will just said now that it creates a lot of volatility and slippage on the low timeframes. So if you can identify the range on a lower time frame, simply for those who are not technical savvy, a range would just mean that price is being capped on the top side at a certain level.

41:34And every time you see it comes into that level, it gets rejected and then it finds support at a certain level. Every time it gets into that level, it continues to bounce. So that creates a great trading range and opportunity. Markets are range bound more than they trend. So therefore, it's advantageous if you know how to play that range. If you are somebody that's looking to dabble in the low timeframe trading strategies, it's really as simple as buying the bottom of the range. And you don't need to short sell, but you can just sell the even if you're buying spot, you can sell that at the top of the range.

42:09So that's the way that I utilize it. And I have recognized it has created some issues on certain exchanges, if I'm not mistaken. That was the reason that Binance US had Bitcoin trading at, I think it was just under$27 ,000 early on this week, because liquidity providers are pulling out, as Will just mentioned. So it will have an effect on certain regions. Rekt, over to you, BTC liquidity. You know, it's interesting because one of the most important events, technical events in Bitcoin's price history is the Bitcoin halving. And I feel like it's in April 2024, around the time where, you know, mid-March 2024 is going to be that final ETF deadline occurring.

42:58And around that same time, the Fed is going to announce a change to rate cuts. So it's really interesting how all these catalysts are aligning around April 2024, or at least the first quarter of the new year. So leading up to that event, we, of course, will probably see lots of volatility in Bitcoin's price action. But then when it comes to that liquidity, we're going to see liquidity just most likely continue to increase pretty steadily towards the upside, along with Bitcoin's price action after the halving. Because after the halving, Bitcoin tends to increase exponentially, the halving being a fundamental shift in the Bitcoin blockchain.

43:43So that tends to really catalyze Bitcoin into a strong uptrend. And going into these next few months, it will be all about trying to potentially understand where this local top for Bitcoin could be. But then not being fearful and pessimistic about crypto once it does enter a multi-month downtrend and quite a bit of a sharp retrace to just compensate for these recent months of price action towards the upside. And just understand that going into the halving, we'll see lots of volatility. But afterwards, liquidity is going to be on the up pretty steadily. Interesting. Got some more questions coming in.

44:24Boy, they're coming in fast and thick for you guys. There's a lot of questions here. Next one comes to us from Art Patron on YouTube. It's an interesting question. Did the black swan of COVID March 2020 have an impact on the double top of this cycle? I'd ask that question. And also more generally, what was the impact of the black swan of COVID on the Bitcoin cycle to you guys? Yeah, to answer the first question, I have no idea. But in terms of like the impact on the cycle, I think maybe one thing to keep an eye out for and as it maybe pertains to things you could take away, you know, forward looking into next year.

45:01is one really important piece of why Bitcoin dumped so aggressively going into the halving, I think, is largely because of the derivatives position leading up to the event. So if you looked at funding rates and open interest, it was pretty clear that traders were getting jacked long heading into the halving in anticipation that price was going to appreciate. And so while you can understand that fundamentally the halving is a positive thing on a kind of you know broad view that doesn't necessarily mean that you can go 75x long into the event the day before uh and so you know that's one thing that i would definitely watch for that that kind of fueled uh the decline of march of 2020 and of course you know if we were to have some type of black swan event that would accelerate what i'm about to say but i think heading into the next having it's really important on uh you know for anyone who's trading on like a shorter term basis to keep in mind.

46:01Events just aren't on an outright basis. Is it a positive or negative thing? It's about how positive or negative is this event relative to the market's expectations heading into it. I think if we're heading into the halving in April of next year and funding rates are like 150 % to 200 % annualized and open interest is up like 3x in a week heading up to the day, You probably want to take a little risk off or hedge out a little bit if that's what you do. But that's not to say that I still don't think on a multi-month basis it's a positive thing for the market. Well, let me ask you this follow-up.

46:40You talk about this idea of traders getting jacked long ahead of the halving. You mentioned earlier we were talking a little bit about perps offshore, the impact that they play. You said 75x. I think you're mostly kidding around. But look, let me ask you this. What's the level of leverage that you guys see offshore? How do you measure it? And what are your thoughts more broadly on the leverage that you see on perps as well as other derivative instruments? Yeah, it's hard to say what's the exact amount of leverage that the market is using necessarily. We have venues now, like there's some DEXs now you can get access to 1 ,000x leverage.

47:15So things have gotten pretty crazy in terms of the amount of leverage that you can get access to. But the things that I look at to kind of gauge how much leverage is in the market are a couple things. One is open interest. So open interest just tells you how many contracts are open outstanding. There's two sides to every contract. So there's always a long and short when we're talking about perps, which is the majority of where the kind of trading activity takes place in crypto. So you can look at open interest to get a gauge of how many contracts are open. And then on top of that, we can look at something called funding rates.

47:51Funding rates are essentially the mechanism that pegs the price of the perp to the other spot venues. And so when funding is positive, longs are paying shorts and then vice versa when funding is negative. And this is the mechanism that incentivizes people to take the other side of the trade to keep that perp contract pegged to spot. So if you see funding rates becoming extremely high, I tend to look at it. I think it's easy to look at them on an annualized basis. So very high funding rates would be like 150 to 200%. That's kind of what we saw like at the euphoria of early 2021. Like that alongside high open interest is probabilistically showing you that there's likely a ton of longs piling in.

48:35Another thing that we can look at to kind of gauge the positioning of futures is looking at the basis. Particularly, I like to look at the three-month futures basis or what some people refer to it as quarterlies. This is looking at what's the futures contract trading at, relative to the current marginal trading price for BTC today. And so we tend to see that that futures curve tends to be in contango, meaning that the six-month future is trading higher than the three-month future. The nine-month future is trading higher than the six-month future. And so we tend to see that that three-month futures basis is usually positive, but it's just a matter of how positive.

49:16And so one thing that I'm looking at is the 30-day change in the futures basis, just as far as a proxy of the rate of change in that futures basis. And so when we look at that, especially compared to periods like early 2021, on a broad view, we're nowhere near the speculative kind of euphoria that took place back then. And then I guess one other thing to add in, in terms of ways that you can use the three-month futures basis. As I mentioned, Bitcoin generally trades in contango. And so whenever that futures basis goes negative, that's a pretty high hit rate signal that we've reached kind of a local bottom because either traders are aggressively trying to hedge out more assumed downside or someone just completely got blown out and had to capitulate out and drove the basis down into negative territory.

50:06But if you go back and look, whenever the three-month futures basis turns negative, It's a pretty high hit rate. I mean, nothing's 100 % hit rate, but it's a pretty high hit rate signal that local products are in. Pretty easy to get blown out with 1 ,000x leverage. I definitely don't advise. I think the holding spot in cold storage will probably outperform the majority of people over the next two, three years. Next question comes just from DS Flat on YouTube. I'm sorry. Yeah, how do you guys see BTC in relation to Wicoff right now? I know, Kyle, you have a chart on this. Give us a little bit of background and context for people who are not familiar with TA, what Wyckoff is.

50:42I think this is something that dates back to the 1930s in terms of analysis method. Yeah, so Wyckoff essentially suggests that the market's either going through accumulation or distribution at a certain point in time. And BTC, I believe, is already going through the markup phase of a Wyckoff accumulation schematic. You get two schematics, schematic one and schematic two. The chart that I dropped today was more focused on total three, which is the altcoin market on a low time frame. Now, these Wyckoff accumulation schematics or distribution schematics can be applied to multiple different time frames.

51:21So you have to take it with a pinch of salt. And I generally just use it as a guideline with confluence of other factors to suggest where price may be going. So a lot of people may be wondering, well, are altcoins going to run? Because obviously that's where usually the best gains or returns are found. And I know that people have strong risk appetites for altcoins, but I strongly encourage them to wait for confirmation before getting into altcoins and let Bitcoin continue to do its thing. because if you look at the Wyckoff accumulation schematic that I have over here, this is schematic two. Schematic two suggests that the bottom may have already been put in, which you can see as marked by the low.

52:04You'll notice that there's a parallel channel which has been governing price towards the downside. Price then slowed down within a horizontal channel simultaneously. So those are kind of the levels that I'm watching in order to get into the SOS phase, which is going to be your confirmation phase. You need to get into that zone, which brings the total three market cap to around$450 billion. You need to see a consolidation, meaning that price continues to hold within that region for a couple of weeks. The SOS phase stands for your sign of strength. Until such time as you get there, I think it's risky to start to look to alt because if you look at a Wyckoff accumulation schematic one, bear in mind, this is number two, number one suggests that you get a secondary low that secondary low could bring price uh down into that that labeled zone that i have which is 231 billion meaning that altcoins could potentially go down another 40 from here um so with with altcoins getting absolutely smacked against bitcoin i also really encourage viewers even if you're not a charters just go on coin gecko or coin market cap and look at the altcoin against Bitcoin price, you can toggle and change from USD value into Bitcoin and at least see that it's outperforming Bitcoin for a couple of weeks before you consider to get into something like that.

53:30So that's what I'm looking at over there for Total 3. I think there's still a little bit of time at play here before we can confirm anything's going to start running for alt. Rekt, anything you've heard there that you'd like to add to? No, I think that was a really comprehensive response. I'd probably only just add that Wyckoff accumulation and Wyckoff distribution, it can be useful as a schematic, but of course, it is just a schematic. However, textbook and reality don't always overlap. However, we've seen that in the past when Bitcoin topped out in 2021 and of course, April and then November, And that was more of a macro Wyckoff distribution.

54:15And that was really interesting how we saw textbook theory actually play out into practice and reality. So those schematics can be quite useful. They can be quite valuable. And we do see that and manifest itself in price. And it's definitely worth having as part of your technical tool bill. Okay, next question from Nico on the Real Vision website. Not our week, Nico at Real Vision. This is a subscriber named Nico. Isn't it a lot of the bulk BTC activity just happening with MicroStrategy's repurchasing program? Or is there more to this related to new buyers? Guys, what do you think? No, I mean, I think it played a partial role.

54:58But if, you know, I can maybe do the math. But like if you go and look at the volume that's been traded on BTC over the last month, month and a half, or even over just the period that it appears that Saylor was purchasing over. I mean, did that play a non-zero effect in that Coinbase trading premium that I talked about in the US trading hour premium that I talked about? For sure. But it definitely wasn't the majority driver of that. And then on top of just looking at BTC, MicroStrategy is also not lifting Coinbase 12 % in 30 minutes off the open. And they're also not driving the GBTC discount down from 50 % to 30%.

55:42They're also not purchasing any of these mining equities. And so did they play a non-zero impact? Sure. But also they're not adding to any of that CME open interest that we talked about. Right. Like several different things outside of just BTC that are showing that, you know, we have this kind of ETF trade being put on by market participants that I definitely think it's it's more than just, you know, sailors kind of purchasing program. But I do think it's interesting thinking about MicroStrategy as essentially like a quasi ETF now that Saylor issued stock, right? Because basically, whenever the equity is trading at a premium to NAV, being the underlying Bitcoin, they can issue more shares and then kind of accelerate the Bitcoin price action, which is putting the premium on the MicroStrategy equity to begin with.

56:36So I think you'll see Saylor will probably continue doing this. And it basically makes, as an investor, makes you think of micro strategy as kind of this quasi ETF of sorts. Well, Will, you just made the case there for looking at a wide variety of different data points in terms of understanding how these prices move and what the relation is to each other. Guys, this has been an incredible conversation. I wish we could do this for three hours instead of one. We're very close to running out of time here. So I want to just go around the horn one time in reverse order to get final thoughts and key takeaways from each of you.

57:10And again, we are a little bit pressed for time. So if we can keep to it about 30 seconds, that would be greatly helpful. Rekt, first to you, Rekt Capital, final thoughts, key takeaways. The macro downtrend has been broken a few months ago. And in doing so, Bitcoin has just confirmed its new macro uptrend, of course. Now, there is scope for a local top to occur. There is scope for a deeper retracement to occur. And even around the halving, going back to Will's point, which he spoke about, buy the hype and sell the news, people leveraging into the halving event and then having a pre-halving retrace.

57:46pre-harving retraces tend to happen across time, and we'll probably see another one as well. So I just feel like if you're a bargain buyer, an investor for the next two to three years, you'll probably do very well. But it's important not to panic on any deeper retracements. And of course, it's always better to be accumulating on those retracements at the same time. Thanks for that, Rick, Kyle. Over to you. 30 seconds on the clock. Final thoughts, key takeaways. Final thoughts is that as long as Bitcoin holds above the 200 daily moving average and that moving average more specifically is angled in an upward direction and continuing to slope upward, then I would say that the trend is your friend.

58:28Stick with the trend and remain long on the market until such time as that starts to get lost. Tying in with what Rick said over here is that the pullback will come eventually. You'll set in a local top. I'm looking anywhere between$36 ,000 and$42 ,000 for that local top to be set. And then I'd be looking for 30 % to 40 % pullback, which would bring price anywhere between$28 ,000 and$32 ,000 as your final buy the dip opportunity before the halving cycle does complete. So that's my summary. Will Clemente, over to you. 30 seconds. Final thoughts, key takeaways. Sure. I think the high timeframe bottom's in.

59:08I think it's difficult to replicate the pure amount of forced selling that took place at the end of 22. Reach textbook kind of signatures on all on-chain metrics. Pushed out of those deep value areas over the last couple months. Now showing some early signs of reclaiming momentum. But I think it's kind of keep it simple season. Accumulate BTC and spot maybe a couple other select assets. There's always a possibility we kind of retest the lows like we did in March of 2020. but I think any large kind of retracements between now and after the having are just to shake you out of your bag. So I think they're for adding, but stay away from leverage and just stay patient over the next year and a half.

59:45Well, Kyle, right. Great conversation. Really exciting. Action packed. Really enjoyed this one. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks guys. Thank you so much for having us so much. That's it for now, but there's a lot more to come. Go to realvision.com forward slash gathering. That's realvision.com forward slash gathering for all the sessions, The conversation continues at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Twitter Spaces. Tomorrow, we'll have a panel focused on NFTs and Web3. Our dear old friend, Sergio Silva, will host OSF, Mando, and EB7. You won't want to miss that. See you Monday at 9 a.m. Pacific, noon Eastern, 5 p.m.

1:00:22London time. Thanks for watching, everybody. Have a great afternoon. What's up, revolutionaries? Thanks for tuning in. And for more content like this, head over to realvision.com and get unfiltered access to the very best, brightest, and biggest names in finance.

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It's Day 2 of our "Crypto Gathering: Is It Game On?" campaign looking at whether the tide has turned and how to ride the wave. Today, we'll analyze technical and on-chain metrics, so expect a chart bonanza. Ash Bennington sits down with Will Clemente, co-founder of Reflexivity Research, Rekt Capital, and Kyle du Plessis aka Kyle Doops, host at Crypto Banter. Join us throughout the week filled with panels of experts. Details here: https://realvision.com/cryptogathering
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